Amazon Aims to Spread Drone Delivery Fleet Across America

Like the Allies in the latter years of World War II, Amazon is establishing air superiority. Only instead of conquering Germany, the e-commerce giant’s sky-high fleet aims to conquer America’s suburbs and sunbelt.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced plans to roll out its drone delivery program to nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of the year. That marks a sixfold increase from current drone delivery service areas, and may well double as a way around (or, rather, right over the top of) some thorny labor law fights in major metro areas.

As The Drone Flies

Amazon is on a mission to shrink two-day delivery down to the amount of time it takes to carry a pizza to a customer. Its drones, which are capable of transporting packages weighing up to 5 pounds and can fly as far as 7.5 miles from their home bases, are playing an increasingly important role in the ultrafast delivery push, and currently operate in 11 metropolitan areas including Dallas, Houston and the suburbs around Phoenix. 

Hundreds of thousands of drone deliveries have already been completed so far this year, well up from years past, Amazon Prime Air Vice President David Carbon said Wednesday. Drone deliveries typically take anywhere from an hour to mere minutes to arrive, Carbon said. 

According to a CNBC report, Carbon recently told staffers that the goal is to hit 1 million drone deliveries this year. It’ll require a massive expansion, meaning Amazon will be increasingly sharing a crowded sky already occupied by its biggest rival:  

• Drones will soon begin delivering from warehouses in Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland and Atlanta, among other locations. The goal is to have the ability to reach 30 million Americans by the end of the year.
• Walmart drone partner Wing, an Alphabet subsidiary, says 40 million Americans will be in its reach by the end of next year. 

A New York Mile: Both consumer giants share the same goal: lowering delivery costs. (It’s no surprise that DoorDash and Uber have made similar drone pushes this summer.) It’s a problem all the more fraught for Amazon these days. The commerce giant has gone to war in New York City this summer, spending big to lobby against proposed legislation that would force it to turn its complex network of subcontractor couriers into full-time employees. The Big Apple is notably not listed among Amazon’s planned drone expansion sites.